In four short years, Stefanie Lifford has gone from taking calls from individual consumers to now working on the electric distribution side monitoring power flow, troubleshooting outages, and helping keep the lights on for large numbers of consumers at a time. “That was really the big picture for me,” she said. “As a customer contact… Continue reading.

Montgomery County’s seat of Crawfordsville features two historic sites that are now public museums. One fits into its self-proclaimed nickname as the “Athens of Indiana” because of the number of authors who were born or have worked there, and the other revolves around a novel form of incarceration. The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum,… Continue reading.

Every true blue-blooded, gold-torch-carrying Hoosier probably knows the official state bird is the native Northern cardinal. And most Hoosiers could likely recite at least part of the refrain of the state song, “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” whether they live along the Ohio River, the southern tip of Lake Michigan, or in… Continue reading.

Even if you love the crackle and warmth of a natural-burning wood fire in the hearth, you probably could live without the added cost to your energy bill.  Sure, the flickering flames make you feel warm while you’re sitting nearby, but wood-burning fires actually have negative efficiency. They emit little or no warmth to a… Continue reading.

If some rooms in your house are too cold while others are too hot, you might need more insulation in your attic. Cold air that seeps into your attic doesn’t have to find its way into your living space. Adequate attic insulation, properly installed, can catch it.  If your floor is unusually cold, check the… Continue reading.

Want to save money on your energy bills this winter — without spending a lot to make it happen? Here are 15 low- or no-cost changes you can make: Use your home’s ceiling fans to make the rooms feel warmer. Most people think fans are just for summer, but ceiling fans running slowly in reverse will… Continue reading.

An electric blanket or mattress pad could save you up to 3% on your heating bill — for each degree you lower your thermostat overnight. And you won’t feel cold. But don’t plug in an old electric blanket that you haven’t used in years. Chances are, it’s no longer safe.  Besides, newer models have better… Continue reading.

Thirty-nine years ago, I began a journey that ended up defining my lifetime. Just a couple of years out of college, I was hired to write a history book about rural electrification in Indiana and work on a tabloid newspaper called Electric Consumer. I never would have imagined back then that I would make a… Continue reading.

Since 2009, Indiana Electric Cooperatives has recognized young Hoosiers through the Youth Power and Hope Awards. The awards program — coordinated by the staff of Indiana Connection magazine — honors a select group of middle school students in grades 5 through 8 who are making an impact on their communities. The winners for 2022 were… Continue reading.

by Emily Schilling Magazine writers possess the enviable ability to encapsulate time with every word they write. That’s because their stories and articles often reflect what was going on when they were written. So, as I look back on 39 years at Indiana Electric Cooperatives/Indiana Connection, the articles, headlines and columns I’ve written; the photos… Continue reading.

Eighty years ago this spring, the Nazi regime in Germany, already in the throes of its genocide against millions of people it deemed undesirable and a World War it instigated, began conducting perverse pseudoscientific medical experiments on sets of twins. Among those pulled from the population bound to the concentration camps in the spring of… Continue reading.

Sharing Indiana’s 45 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline are three counties: La Porte, Porter and Lake. And while La Porte County has the fewest miles of lakefront property, it derives much of its character and even its name from its location on the lake. La Porte County takes its name from the French term meaning… Continue reading.